


The Fire

by summers-maclay-lehane (ofstormsandwolves)



Series: Sunnydale 2019 [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bullying, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 20:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21282482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofstormsandwolves/pseuds/summers-maclay-lehane
Summary: Buffy finds herself facing a serious problem: how does she explain to her new friends the reasons for moving to Sunnydale? And will they desert her when they know the truth?
Relationships: Rupert Giles/Joyce Summers
Series: Sunnydale 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1377481
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	The Fire

“So you guys are still coming to mine after school?” Buffy asked as she sat down with Willow, Xander, and Faith in the cafeteria.

“Hell yeah,” Faith grinned. “Free food!”

Xander echoed her sentiments, and Willow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we are,” she assured Buffy. Then, a little more softly, she asked: “Are you ok?”

Buffy forced a smile. “I’m fine. Still getting used to the new school, that’s all.”

Willow, to her credit, didn’t look like she bought that for a second, but seemed to let it slide.

“What are we doing at your place then, B?” Faith asked as she snagged some chips from the packet Xander had in his hand.

“Just hanging out,” Buffy shrugged awkwardly. “You know, hanging, chatting, that sort of thing.”

Faith’s eyes narrowed as she surveyed Buffy, and the blonde shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Willow seemed to notice this. 

“Did you guys see the posters are up for this year’s science fair?” she asked hurriedly. “I was thinking of entering. Did any of you want to do a group project or something? I’d be happy to help.”

That was enough to tear Faith’s gaze away from Buffy. “No thanks,” Faith shrugged. “Science isn’t really my thing.”

Catching Willow’s eye, Buffy mouthed a ‘thank you’.

* * *

By the time the last bell rang, Buffy was a nervous wreck. She knew her parents were right, and that talking to her new friends sooner rather than later would be better for all involved. But it was embarrassing, and scary, and she wasn’t sure what she’d do if they turned their backs on her. She was fairly certain she had no chance at getting in with Cordelia’s group now that she had been seen with Willow and Xander, and although she didn’t want to be friends with Cordelia, it would have been nice to have that safety net. Instead there was... Nothing.

The walk to Revello Drive was tense and awkward, even though Buffy was certain Xander and Faith weren’t really picking up on it. The house was empty when they got there, with Giles still at the school and Joyce at the gallery, and Buffy unlocked the door to usher them all in.

“Now what?” Faith asked as she flopped onto the sofa, rucksack abandoned by the front door. “You gonna spill?”

Buffy blinked. “What?”

Faith fixed her with a look. “Are you gonna tell us what’s been bothering you?”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed as he flopped down on the opposite end of the sofa to Faith, “you’ve been acting weird all day. I know I’ve only known you a day, but even I could tell something was up.”

Buffy bit her lip, taking in her new friends, all of whom were watching her with concern. “You have to promise to let me finish before you completely wig, ok?”

“Sure, Buff,” Willow said, giving her a concerned smile as she settled herself on the floor.

Buffy sighed and sat down next to Willow, facing the sofa. “I need to explain a little about who I was in LA.”

* * *

_This wasn’t going to be like junior high. She was better than that. Buffy Anne Summers had had enough of being the cutesy kid who got overlooked. She was a high schooler now, and she had to make her mark somehow._

_Already she was planning on signing up for the cheer team, but she knew she had to do more than that to become popular. It wasn’t that she’d been unpopular in junior high, and she’d had a nice group of friends, but things changed. When you got to high school you changed. Buffy didn’t want to just blend in, she wanted to be better than that. She wanted to be in with the popular crowd._

_The cheerleading tryouts went better than she could have dreamed, and she even made the team. In fact, her tryout was so good that she soon had the older cheerleaders approaching her in the corridors._

_“Buffy,” Natasha Collins greeted with a smug grin. “I want to talk to you.”_

_Well, Natasha was the head cheerleader, and a senior, and Buffy wasn’t about to jeopardise her place on the team by saying no. So she nodded and followed Natasha and her friends to the bathroom._

_“We know you’re new to the squad,” Natasha said once they’d all gathered in the bathroom, “but you need to maintain a certain image if you’re going to be on the cheer squad.”_

_Buffy bristled a little at that, but kept her mouth shut._

_One of the junior year cheerleaders nodded at that. Buffy thought her name was Brooke. “Yeah. You need to learn to stand up for yourself. Nobody messes with us, ok?”_

_“I do stand up for myself,” Buffy responded with a frown._

_“Do you though?” asked another girl. “Because this isn’t about only standing up for yourself when someone calls you a name, Buffy. It’s more than that. You’re on the squad now, and you need to make it clear that you’re not to be messed with.”_

_“What we’re saying,” Natasha explained with a cruel smile, “is that you need to make it clear that you’re the boss. Knock a few people down, critique a few outfits on your way to class, make it clear that you’re stronger than the rest of them. We can’t have weak people on the squad.”_

_Buffy swallowed, but nodded. She wanted to be on the team. She wanted to be popular. It wasn’t a big deal, was it?_

_“Ok.”_

* * *

“Geez,” Faith muttered as Buffy finished explaining her first few weeks on the Hemery High cheer squad.

“I know,” Buffy grimaced. “And it kinda gets worse. I... I picked on quite a few people. It was made clear to me that that was part of being on the cheer squad, and I was so scared they’d kick me out, so I just went along with it. I managed to avoid the social media stuff, told them that my mom regularly checked my accounts. They tried to get me to set up fake accounts, but I kept making excuses.” 

She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t get out of it at school, though. The rest of the team would follow me, and they’d wait in the corridor while I picked someone out to mock. I hated it. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do. It happened so often the teachers must have known, but nothing ever seemed to happen. And if I’d told my mom or Giles, I’d have to tell them what was going on. So I never let on to them. I lied about what was going on at school, who I was hanging out with, who my friends were. I didn’t even tell them when I started dating a guy, because he was in his junior year, and he’d only looked in my direction because of how I acted at school. He’d thought I was cool and pretty, and he liked it when I made fun of people. And I liked that he liked me, so I thought ‘why not keep doing this?’”

* * *

_It had been so easy to lie. Painfully easy. _

_“Where have you been?”_

_“I was at Bridgette’s house, Mom. I told you last week.”_

_“Oh. Well, call next time.”_

_“Ok.”_

_The lies kept coming and coming. Once she’d started it was like she couldn’t stop._

_“I’m going to the movies on Friday night.”_

_“Have you asked your mother?”_

_“Yes, Giles.”_

_“Good. Who are you going with?”_

_My new boyfriend. “Just some girls from drama class.”_

_“Well, have fun.”_

_They never seemed to notice. Or if they did, then they didn’t care. At least that was the way Buffy saw it. Her parents didn’t care what she did, so why did it matter if she lied? She was fifteen, she was old enough to make her own decisions. She didn’t need Giles’s concerned looks or her mom’s disapproving glare. So what if she was hanging out with older girls? So what if her boyfriend was seventeen? So what, so what, so what?_

_It was easier for everyone if her parents didn’t know. Her real dad didn’t care anyway, he hardly ever came to see her. He was always working. Of course, Buffy knew that what he was actually doing was getting off with his secretary. Her parents didn’t know that she knew that._

_At the end of the day, she had fun with her new friends, and her mom and Giles didn’t seem too fussed about what she was doing, so why should it matter? It wasn’t like anybody was really getting hurt. _

_Ok, there were the occasional harsh comments. The occasional girl crying in the bathroom because of something Buffy had said. And she felt bad about it, but her new friends were always watching, always waiting. One wrong move and they’d be on her like a pack of dogs. She had to prove she was strong. She had to prove she belonged._

_She did belong. Right?_

* * *

Willow and Xander had been silent, just staring at Buffy with wide eyes.

“You... You don’t still think like that, do you?” Willow asked nervously.

“No,” Buffy said quickly, shaking her head. “It’s why I’m telling you, though. I deleted everyone off my social media accounts after I left Hemery, and I don’t talk to any of them. But there’s still a chance people might find out this stuff, if they dig deep enough, and I didn’t want you guys to hear about it through rumours.”

“Is this why you got kicked out?” Xander asked with a frown. “For bullying?”

Buffy shook her head. “No. But the reason I got kicked out feeds into the bullying thing.”

* * *

_“Hey, Buffy,” Tyler greeted as he bent down to press a kiss to Buffy’s lips._

_She tried to ignore the whoops and cheers of the other football players and cheerleaders watching them. Then, Tyler broke the kiss and climbed up over the bleachers to sit behind her. Instinctively, she leaned back against him._

_“Me and the others were thinking of having a little fun tonight if you’re interested,” he told her in an easy manner._

_Buffy looked up at her boyfriend with a small frown as the others cheered and whooped again. “Doing what?” she asked. _

_Tyler smirked and quirked his eyebrow at her. “Are you scared?”_

_“No,” Buffy retorted quickly._

_But some of Tyler’s friends started laughing then, as did some of the other cheerleaders who were hanging off the players’ arms._

_“I’m not,” Buffy insisted again._

_“Leave her alone,” Tyler said, although he was laughing too. “She’s only a freshman after all. She can’t compete with us juniors just yet.”_

_There was more laughing, and Buffy felt her hackles rise. They always talked down to her. Always seemed to think she was a kid. She wasn’t. She was fifteen. That wasn’t a kid._

_“Whatever it is, I wanna come,” she told Tyler, turning to look him in the eyes._

_Tyler smirked. “Good. I’ll pick you up at eight.”  
_

* * *

_Tyler did as he said he would. At eight pm sharp, Buffy climbed out her bedroom window and met Tyler at their usual meeting point at the end of the street. It was better her mom and Giles didn’t know about her sneaking out._

_“Where are we going?” she asked as they made their way along the street._

_“To have some fun,” Tyler told her with a grin. “C’mon. Josh is picking us up on the corner of Maple and Grosvenor.” _

_Buffy didn’t really like the fact Tyler wouldn’t tell her what was going on, but if she asked more questions he might start thinking she’d gotten cold feet. She hadn’t, she just wanted to know what was going on._

_They got into Josh’s car, Buffy squashed on Tyler’s lap in the back of the car, Matt and Cody also in the back with them. Up front were Josh and Dylan._

_“Pike’s meeting us there,” Matt announced with a grin as Josh sped along the roads. “So are the girls.”_

_“Why?” Buffy asked with a frown. _

_Pike was a senior, and often hung around with the football team despite not actually being on the team himself. He had a slightly dangerous air about him, with his motorcycle and leather jacket. Buffy supposed that in another life she might have had a crush on him._

_“Why d’you want to know?” Matt leered._

_Arching an eyebrow at him, Buffy stared back. “Because I want to know what’s going on.”_

_Tyler sniggered underneath her. “Patience, Buffy,” he teased. “You’ll find out soon enough.”_

* * *

_Buffy felt sick. Pike had met them at the school, and had immediately helped unload stuff from the trunk of Josh’s car. Buffy had been made to stand with the girls- Brooke, and Natasha, and a few other cheerleaders. She couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone knew what was going on except her._

_“Come on then, boys,” Tyler grinned as he started towards the gym._

_As he got closer to Buffy, she could see he was carrying a plastic box filled with cans of spray paint. Oh. She felt herself deflate a little at that. It was just a bit of paint. Nobody was going to get hurt, nothing really bad was going to happen. And if it just took a little bit of spray paint to make everyone think she was cool, where was the harm in that? After that, she felt herself relax a little, and even accepted one of the cans Tyler tossed towards her. Neon pink. Nice._

_Between the twelve of them, they were soon busy spraying the brick wall of the gym. Some of them opted for designs, but a few of the boys opted to simply spray paint swear words onto the wall in neon paint._

_After nearly half an hour, Pike stepped back to admire his work, pulling his cigarettes and a box of matches from his pocket. “Not bad,” he told them as he stepped closer again, cigarette between his lips as he fumbled for a match._

_He managed to strike one, and lit his cigarette before flicking the used match away. _

_“Give me those matches,” Josh said, holding out his hand. _

_Pike shrugged, and handed the box over. “Don’t use them all.”_

_But Josh just snorted and ignored him. Within moments, he had a match lit, and only a second after that, Matt and he were creating flamethrowers out of the unused spray paint, laughing all the while._

_“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Buffy told Tyler worriedly._

_Tyler just laughed. “Oh, lighten up. It’s fine. We do this stuff all the time.”_

_Somehow, that didn’t exactly calm Buffy. But there was nothing she could do, nobody would listen to her. Pike was watching the scene with disdain, cigarette between his lips as he eyed the juniors. He didn’t seem too pleased either, but he wasn’t stepping in. Just as Buffy was about to say something, there was a scream, and she looked around to see that the can in Matt’s hands had caught fire._

_Panicking, he threw it as hard as it could, and it shattered the window of the gym. Within moments, fire could be seen raging in the windows._

_“Oh, dude,” Cody laughed, “I think you set the banners on fire!”_

_There was a sudden bang, like the can had exploded, and smoke started billowing from windows._

_“Shit!” Tyler yelled, scrambling away from the gym._

_Pike grabbed Buffy by the arm and hauled her away, as everyone started scrambling towards the parking lot. Buffy found herself bundled into the back of Josh’s car, and by the time the adrenaline wore off, she was standing on her front lawn as the car sped off into the distance.  
_

* * *

“The Police came round later that night,” Buffy admitted quietly. “Some people who worked in a store opposite the school saw everything and called the police. Mom and Giles were furious with me, and there was a whole court thing, and I got kicked out of school.”

“Fuck,” Faith murmured, eyes wide. Her expression was somewhere between shock and excitement. Buffy wasn’t sure she liked that.

“Yeah. I didn’t actually get charged with the burning down of the gym, seeing as it was Matt and Josh who were doing the whole ‘setting-fire-to-stuff’ thing. But I still got in trouble for the spray painting. Mom and Giles had to pay a fine. I’m still trying to pay it back.”

Xander was looking almost as eager as Faith. “How much was it? The fine?”

Buffy grimaced. “Loads. Like, thousands. Giles has family money, and he ended up using some of that. I felt awful. And my dad didn’t even contribute a dollar to it. Said it was Mom’s fault for not keeping a closer eye on me.” She rolled her eyes at that. “And it all happened because I wanted to be popular.”

There was an awkward silence then, and Buffy stared down at her lap. Then, she felt a hand on her arm. Looking up, she saw Willow smiling uncertainly at her.

“It’s ok, Buffy,” Willow told her gently. “You made a mistake. We’ve all done it. I mean, we haven’t all burned down the school, but, but we’re not perfect either.”

“Yeah,” Xander chimed in, “I’m not one for setting the gym on fire, but if you want to hang out and do less flammable things I’m down with that.”

“I’m all for fire, by the way,” Faith shrugged with a grin. “But I’m down for anything if there’s snacks.” She waggled her eyebrows at Buffy, who sighed and got to her feet.

“I think my mom left snacks in the kitchen,” she told them. “Wanna go see what we can find?”

And as Xander and Faith raced their way to the kitchen, Buffy shared a smile with Willow. Everything was going to be ok.


End file.
